


Fundamental Differences

by Hideous_Sun_Demon



Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: Breakups, Drinking, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, post 2x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:26:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hideous_Sun_Demon/pseuds/Hideous_Sun_Demon
Summary: Seth takes Lyor out for that drink.





	Fundamental Differences

**Author's Note:**

> This is very late, and rendered null and void by 2x16 regardless, but I finally got around to finishing it so I figured I’d post anyway.

Seth has abandoned his scarf in his office. There’s still a nip in air, even back in Washington, but it has nothing on Camp David, so Seth can tolerate it. Besides, he welcomes the cold tonight. Since his talk with Emily, he’s been feeling a little hot under the collar.

So, he and Emily are over. Officially over- at least he knows for sure this time. Six months of shared dinners and stupid in-jokes, of miscommunications and apologies and tense silences, wrapped up in the blink of an eye. This is a good thing, Seth reminds himself. Clarity is a good thing, isn’t that what he’d said to Emily? He certainly has that now. Seth fishes around inside for the relief that he usually feels after breaking up with someone- he isn’t usually the one to end relationships, actually, but whenever he does it’s always felt like the right thing to do. He knows this is the right call, and the relief is lurking in there somewhere. But more than anything, this feels like a surrender.

It’s the kind of emptiness that makes him itch for a drink. Even though he’s the one who actually broke up with Emily, Seth figures he’s owed one night spent being maudlin. Usually he would pour himself a glass in his office, but right now Seth wants to be anywhere but there. He can’t count the amount of times he and Emily had split a bottle in his office, or hers- the whole White House is tied up in memories of their relationship. What Seth needs right now is a bar. The refuge for heartbroken 40 somethings since the dawn of time. Perfect.

Seth had left the White House alone, but as he slowly lets his surroundings bleed into his awareness he realises that there’s another figure a few yards up ahead, the lanky silhouette all too familiar after spending the last two days practically living out of each other’s pockets. Seth doesn’t usually leave at the same time as Lyor, and doesn’t much wonder how he gets home, but it seems like he must catch the train like Seth does. Walking alone like he is, braced against the biting wind, strikes Seth as an awfully lonely sight. He’s probably just projecting his own feelings. But it’s true that Lyor had seemed a little less like himself, a little more on edge, on the way back from Camp David. No doubt Greg Bowen’s influence.

Seth’s lip curls as he remembers his last conversation with that weaselly little bastard. The white-hot anger he’d felt after learning what Bowen had done is still fresh on his mind. Still, even if he is a grade-A son of a bitch, he’d at least made one good suggestion- after everything they’d gotten done, Lyor deserves a drink. Not for the same reasons as Seth, but he isn’t one to pass up a potential drinking buddy. In times like these, Seth prefers not to be alone with his thoughts, and if Lyor’s good for anything, it’s being a distraction.

“Lyor!” Seth hollers before he can change his mind, and breaks out a little half-jog to close the distance between them. Lyor turns at Seth’s call, mild surprise flickering across his face, but he halts to wait for Seth to catch up. “Oh, hey Seth,” he greets him placidly, and Seth shoots him a tired smile.

“Hey,” he greeted in return. “I was wondering, maybe you want to grab a drink?”

“A drink.” Lyor cocks his head, and Seth resists the urge to roll his eyes. How is Lyor always able to make the most innocuous of things sound utterly alien?

“Yeah. You do that, right?” He can’t resist the jab, but he hurries on before Lyor loses interest, hoping he sounds as genuine as he feels. “I figure we did good work the last couple of days, and I’m in the mood to celebrate.” Seth wonders if Lyor can tell that he’s lying. “I don’t have any plans for tonight. Not anymore, anyway, so.....?” Seth trails off, embarrassed at himself for how pathetic that last sentence sounded, and disheartened by Lyor’s blank expression. Well, give him credit for trying, Seth thinks sourly.

“....Never mind,” he huffs, moving to walk past. He only makes it a few paces before Lyor falls into step with him as if he’d always intended to.

“Have you ever had a Purple Rain?” Lyor asks out of the blue.

“Uh...no.”

“Hmm, you should try it. It’s quite excellent- much better than that drain-cleaner you keep in your office.”

Seth blinks, startled by Lyor’s apparent turn-around, leaping to keep up as the other man strides onwards with newfound purpose. Maybe he’d just been taken by surprise- Lyor doesn’t really seem like the type to get invited to group-hangs after work. If Seth’s being honest, he has trouble picturing Lyor somewhere like a bar- somewhere, well, normal. It’s almost as weird as it was seeing him out of his usual suit and in plain pyjamas the other night. It’s funny, Seth muses, to realise that Lyor really does lead a fairly normal life, all things considered. He doesn’t just pop up in the White House to perform his political magic, and then go back home to his....mad scientist’s lair. Or plug himself in to recharge his cyborg brain.

“What’re you smiling about?” Lyor asks him, and Seth clamps down on his grin.

“Nothing,” he laughs.

They make their way to the bar in relative silence. It would usually be awkward, but Seth isn’t in the mood to talk until he has some booze in him, and Lyor doesn’t seem to mind too much. It’s a quiet evening, and Seth doesn’t have to wait long before being served his whiskey on the rocks and sliding into a corner booth, leaving Lyor lingering at the bar counter, apparently explaining something to the increasingly harried looking bartender in great detail.

The alcohol sears a burning trail down Seth’s throat, and he hums in gratitude as he slips his eyes closed. A good end to a bad day, he thinks lazily, before his heart seizes- that was yet another reminder of Emily. He takes another gulp, tries to blur the memory out. It doesn’t really work. The scrape of chair legs against the floor cuts through Seth’s melancholy, and he cracks his eyes open again to be assaulted with the sight of Lyor holding a drink that looks entirely unfit for human consumption. 

“What...is that?” Seth deadpans, and Lyor airily twirls the straw in his monstrosity. It’s garishly purple, with a lime slice sitting daintily atop the glass rim to complete the look. Suddenly the image of Lyor in a bar makes a little more sense.

“Like I said, it’s a Purple Rain,” he sniffs in reply, “and you wouldn’t be mocking it if you tried it.”

“I think I’ll stick with drinks that aren’t neon, thanks,” Seth says, half smiling despite himself. He’s noticed how much more he’s been able to take Lyor’s idiosyncrasies with good humour as of late, rather than listing them as contributors to his migraines. The guy really must be growing on him. The grin doesn’t last long though, and as Seth feels himself sliding back into his low mood he brings the glass to his lips, a tired reflex.

Lyor’s eyes fix on him, gleaming in their intensity, and Seth almost squirms, feeling skewered by his gaze like a specimen pinned to a board. Lyor has this way of looking at people, as though they’re either the dullest or the most fascinating creatures he’s ever come across, and right now Seth is oddly sure he’s the latter. He takes another slow drink from his whiskey, and Lyor tracks the smooth bob of his throat as he swallows. “Doesn’t seem like much of a celebratory drink to me,” he comments.

If Seth was in a celebratory mood, he’d be throwing back tequila shots. He doesn’t say that though, merely raises his eyebrows as he swallows, daring Lyor to dig deeper. He knows figuring people out is like a hobby of his- hell, it’s pretty much his job, and Seth can’t help but wonder how far down Lyor is willing to go into the rabbit hole that is his life at the moment.

“Does this have anything to do with why you’re sharing a drink with me instead of Emily?” Lyor asks, taking a considering sip of his cocktail, and Seth winces. Lyor hums under his breath- he knows he’s hit the nail on the head. “Ah, the W60-3.”

“Yep,” Seth says, chasing his sigh with a humourless laugh.

“You should have let me take a look at it.”

Now Seth really wants to laugh. “Something tells me that wouldn’t have helped much, Romeo.” He stares into his whiskey, lets the warm swirl of amber draw him in- he’s nearly finished the glass already. He sighs. "It wasn't what I wrote that was the problem, not really. It wasn't even the form. I mean, it didn't help, but....." Thinking back over the past six months, dating Emily had been a series of curveballs that Seth could barely keep up with. At some point along the way he'd come to expect conflict as just another part of their relationship- maybe that should have been his first warning sign. "Emily would always find a reason to hold back. First she says I'm expecting special treatment from her, then she wants to take a break- except she actually doesn't, apparently- then she wants to go public, but not if there are any strings attached." 

"So...?" Lyor prompts.

"So, we ended things," Seth shrugs resignedly, "I ended things."

"Well, I saw that coming a mile away," Lyor says. Seth shoots him a disgruntled look, but the other man takes the time to have another long sip of his drink before elaborating. "Not you being the one to end things- that's actually surprising. Good for you. But," he shakes his head knowingly, "that relationship was doomed from the start."

It's moments like these that remind Seth why he used to hate Lyor. "That's not- we weren't doomed," Seth snaps. "Why would you say that?"

A crooked smile dangles from the other man's lips. "I've known Emily a long time, so I'm qualified to tell you that she's an utter control freak- I'm sure you already figured that one out for yourself." Seth snorts in agreement, and Lyor chuckles. "She needs to have everything- and everyone- marching to the beat of her own drum. You want to know why she picked you in the first place?"

Seth braces himself for the insult he knows is coming- he can't imagine Lyor is going to credit his good looks. "Why?"

“Because you're safe. You're easy. A textbook people pleaser. Emily never thought she'd have to worry about you challenging her. She wanted the comfort of someone who would stick by her without risking them leaving her if she pushed them too far." Lyor quirks his lips. "Shows what she knows. But to her, that's what you were."

"....A security blanket." Seth concludes. The words feel heavy on his tongue.

"Exactly. That is, until you became a security blanket with a little self-respect. Which is what would have eventually killed the relationship anyway, even if you hadn’t ended things yourself. Emily would have dropped you as soon as she realised you weren’t playing her game.” 

A part of Seth wants to protest the implication that he’d been a doormat before now, but really, he can’t even find it in himself to be offended. How can he be? Lyor is completely, utterly right. Perhaps clarity isn't such a good thing after all, because with every word Lyor says it becomes clear to Seth that his whole relationship with Emily had been a six month long mistake. He'd suspected that Kendra had disapproved- something about the wry half-smile she'd given Seth when he'd handed in his W60-3, as if she'd known how Emily would react to it- but it turns out it wasn't just her. Even Lyor, the guy whose idea of a good relationship was marrying someone and then not seeing them for six years, even he had thought their relationship was no good. Everyone had realised- everyone except Seth.

Seth gives a defeated nod. "And it took me six months to realise it was a game at all......I've been fooling myself this whole time." he mutters into his glass, cheeks flushed dark from one-part whiskey, two-parts humiliation. "Great."

Lyor sobers at Seth's words, and he stares at him, long and unblinking. "Seth," he begins, slower this time, and Seth can't help but look up. "Emily was the one fooling herself if she thought she could string you along forever. Or that she deserved to."

Lyor's moments of sincerity are as startling as they are rare, and Seth shifts a little in his seat, not quite sure what to say in response. Lyor saves him the trouble by promptly bursting the bubble. "Besides," he continues, flickering droplets of iced vodka on the table with his straw as he jabbed it in Seth's direction, "you broke up with her. That means you win."

Seth breathes out a half hearted laugh, muffled by the glass against his lips as he downs the last of his whiskey, and shakes his head exasperatedly. "Why is everything always a competition with you?"

"Life is a competition, Seth," Lyor says, "and I'm in it to win."

The evening so far has ended up being exactly as forlorn as Seth had been hoping it wouldn't be, but shaking his head at Lyor’s bizarre worldview is familiar ground, and Seth clings to it like a life raft. "No wonder you and Greg Bowen didn't get on," he chuckles. He expects a barbed retort in reply, or perhaps a segue into one of Lyor's rants about 'socially stunted misanthropes.' That's the song and dance between them, after all, the push-and-pull banter to blow off steam. But instead Lyor falls quiet, drinks deeply from his glass as if he's trying to wash a nasty taste out of his mouth.

“Must you keep bringing him up?” Lyor mutters. As the night had drawn on and Seth had becoming increasingly wrapped up in his own melancholy, he’d almost forgotten Lyor’s strange behaviour. But now, again, Seth notices that he seems oddly subdued, the hard line of his mouth measuring out his displeasure. Seth can’t say he blames him. He’d only met Greg Bowen briefly, but Seth can already say with certainty that he’s one of his least favourite people. Not least of all because of what he did to Lyor. 

Seth remembers, a tad guiltily, the kick he’d gotten out of watching the two of them clash in the beginning. He’d assumed that Lyor’s grudge stemmed from something ridiculous; perhaps Bowen had stolen his thunder one too many times while they were working together, or, hell, maybe he’d gotten Lyor’s coffee order wrong once. Lyor is exactly the type of person to hold onto something so petty for so long. But once Seth’s curiosity had gotten the better of him and he’d dug around for some answers....well, Seth’s mirth had dissolved in an instant, slowly morphing into silent fury as he’d heard his friend spin him a tale about how Greg Bowen had singlehandedly destroyed Lyor’s reputation. And Lyor had never mentioned a word of it.

“Sorry, sorry,” Seth says, and really means it. But he can’t quite fight the urge to dig deeper- he’s already spilled his guts to Lyor tonight, the least the man can do is return the favour- so after a beat he pushes on. “It’s just, you two must have been at each other’s throats constantly. I’m surprised you managed to keep from killing him.”

“Hardly.” Lyor replies. “Before Hammond’s campaign ended we were...close.” 

“You were friends?” Now that’s hard to imagine. Seth had pictured a river of bad blood between the two men- anything to justify the stunt Bowen pulled.

Keep up, Lyor’s eyes seem to say as he looks back at Seth. “We were dating, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh.” Seth hadn’t expected that, and the revelation almost knocks the wind out of him. “...Oh.” This wasn’t just a rift between former colleagues then. This ran so much deeper. As surprised as Seth is, as he thinks back over all the interactions between the two men, he realises that perhaps he should have seen this coming. The simmering hostility wrapped up in suffocating civility? Seth can’t count the amount of exes he’s run into that he’s reacted to like that. Seth leans back in his seat to sweep his eyes appraisingly over Lyor. He feels like he’s seeing the man in a whole new light. “So when you said you two went way back, you didn’t just mean on the job.”

Lyor takes a long sip of his drink instead of answering, and they drift into an uncomfortable silence. Seth starts to suspect that this is the end of that conversation- or any conversation at all- when Lyor speaks up again.

“We met working for Hammond. We were both new to campaigning, fresh out of college, but he was brilliant. One of the first people I’d ever met who could keep up with me. We hit it off- mostly because nobody else willingly associated with us.” Seth has to smile at that, but Lyor doesn’t notice, too caught up in remembering, “it was casual, at first- neither of us had the time or inclination for a proper relationship, but....” Lyor shrugs, “I grew fond, I suppose. It was nice, not working with a total idiot.” He laughs, self effacing- not something Seth ever thought he’d hear from Lyor. “I started thinking of us as a team- us against the world, you know?”

Lyor smiles nonchalantly, but it’s a shadow across his face. “Until Hammond’s campaign started going downhill, that is. We all knew he was a lame duck, but Greg was the one who decided sticking it out wasn’t worth his time.” Lyor pokes at the rapidly melting ice in his drink- he’s been playing with it more than he’s been drinking, Seth has noticed.

“He apparently couldn’t find a single reason to stay.”

Seth feels his throat tighten in sympathy. Lyor had been speaking so casually up until then, Seth could have almost believed that Lyor didn’t care. But with those nine words, and the look in his eyes as he said them, Seth can’t miss the traces of raw hurt that he can’t hide any longer. From Lyor, that means a lot.

But the moment quickly passes, and Lyor continues as indifferently as before. “That was when I realised I’d vastly miscalculated the nature of our relationship. To him, I was a...way to fill the time, I suppose. But I...”

Seth finishes for him softly. “You were in love.”

Lyor scoffs. “I was an idiot.” A quiet sigh escapes him. “So, yes, basically.”

Seth lets out a breath, shaking his head as he drums his fingers on the sticky table. “And after all of that, he still spread all those rumours about you?”

Before, Lyor’s focus had drifted to someplace- some time- far away, but now he hones back on Seth with laser focus. “I never said anything about rumours.” Seth blanches, cursing his clumsy tongue. This whiskey must be stronger than he’d thought.

“I may have done some digging,” he admits. At Lyor’s raised eyebrow Seth holds up his hands defensively. “I was curious- you’d been worked up about him since the moment we saw him! Anyway, I know a guy who knows a guy and, yeah, I found out about the whole mess. Bowen pinning the campaign’s failure on you, all of it.”

“Well, he couldn’t have anyone thinking it was his fault, now could he?” Lyor shrugs.

“You don’t think,” Seth offers cautiously, “he did it as a way to hurt you?”

Lyor’s smile is brittle. “Honestly, I don’t think he ever cared enough about me to bother.”

And honestly, Seth thinks with a heavy heart, that realisation- to know that in the end, you really meant nothing- is so much worse. He studies Lyor, tries to imagine him young and heartbroken. The image twists and turns in his head, trying to find its place amongst all the notions of the man in front of him that have built up in the time Seth has known him. Lyor: unbearable asshole. Lyor: certifiably insane. Lyor: insufferable genius. Lyor: unexpected confidant. Lyor: a stand up guy.

Seth had never been able to figure Lyor out since the moment they’d met, and eventually he’d stopped trying to. It wasn’t that he’d given up, exactly. More that he decided that Lyor was simply an enigma- impossible to understand. Now, though, Seth thinks he’s beginning to.

“That’s cold, man,” Seth says in the wake of Lyor’s lingering silence. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lyor says, face noncommittal as he tries the watery remains of his drink. “We wouldn’t have worked out anyway. We were just too different.”

“Yeah.” Seth smiles. Lyor has no idea how right he is.

Seth rubs the rim of his empty glass thoughtfully as Lyor finishes his own drink. He thinks about getting another, but the desperate need for it he’d felt before has dried up. Right now, he’s content to just sit there. He finds himself watching Lyor again, wondering. 

“It’s funny,” he says, breaking the silence once more, and Lyor glances up at him. “You never miss an opportunity to call people out, but all this stuff with Bowen? You never mentioned it. Not once.”

The other man grimaces as he pushes his empty glass away. “Greg Bowen is a stain I’d rather have washed out.” He seems almost embarrassed, perhaps only now realising the extent of his past he’s admitted to Seth. “I don’t like to dwell on my mistakes.”

“Lyor Boone? Making a mistake?” Seth teases.

Lyor snorts. “They don’t happen often. Count yourself lucky, Seth, this is a rare moment.”

Seth can’t keep the smile off his face though. He’d never thought he’d ever end up commiserating with Lyor Boone about past relationships over drinks, but now that he’s here, Seth feels oddly lightened. His smile turns fond.

“I think it’s nice, actually,” he says. “It makes you more...human.”

“You take that back,” Lyor hisses, but there’s an answering smile in his words.

More human, Seth reflects. He’s right- that’s what being human is all about, isn’t it? Messing up, making mistakes, falling in love and then...falling out of it. He thinks about Emily, thinks about what he’d hoped for with the two of them before today. It still hurts, but the weight isn’t quite as heavy, not anymore. 

“Hey,” he calls over to Lyor. This has been a day of firsts with him, and there’s another that Seth desperately wants to check off his list. He can’t imagine anything funnier than Lyor properly drunk. “You like shots?”

Tequila shots, Seth decides. He’s in the mood to celebrate.

**Author's Note:**

> Now let’s just pretend that Seth and Lyor got absolutely smashed on vodka and had a grand old time swapping stories about their exes and then going to work hungover, instead of having to deal with Tom declaring war.....


End file.
